With the advent of digital technology, the digital copier became feasible. Basically a digital copier comprises a scanner for converting hard copy images into electronic images and a printer for converting electronic images into hard copy images. Between scanner and printer the image is available as an electronic digital image. It is this characteristic that provides the ability to provide a digital copier with a wealth of features that were not feasible before. Due to the digital technology the copier was enhanced by all kinds of features that then became possible, such as queueing of jobs, electronic rdf, image enhancements by performing digital signal processing on the electronic images, editing of images, pattern recognition processing etc.
Furthermore these apparatus were able to communicate the electronic images, so that such a copier could be used as a printer to print images received from a host computer and could be used as a fax apparatus to exchange images with other fax machines.
Recently, it became also known to use the communication facility to exchange print job images from one reproduction apparatus with another reproduction apparatus with the purpose to process the images on the other apparatus, where after the processed images are sent back to the originating reproduction apparatus and printed out.
Such a facility is described in EPA 0797344 which is assigned to the SHARP Corporation. The EPA '344 reference describes a distributed document handling system comprising a plurality of image forming apparatuses that are operatively connected so as to communicate with each other. Each image forming apparatus comprises a number of services that perform image processing functions. The apparatuses can exchange image information with each other through the communication apparatus. As shown in the system described above, in a dynamic distributed environment, tasks can be performed by linking services that carry out subtasks.
However, the more services are available in such an environment, the more combinations of services are possible. As the number of available services increases, one may expect the number of combinations that perform a desired task to rise as well. In such case, a system according to the background art will become unmanageable. Furthermore not all such combinations will be desirable in the light of restrictions that are imposed by the environment or by the requester. The background art does not address these problems.